Ad-Tech Execs Weigh In On The Trade Desk's IPO

Tobi Elkin

MediaPost

September 23, 2016

This week marked a turning point for The Trade Desk as it became a publicly traded company.

Ad-tech executives are buzzing about it. Of course, many would like the conditions to be right and ripe for their companies to have the next IPO. More than likely, thought, that honor will go to AppNexus.

Here’s what a few ad-tech executives shared with RTBlog about this week’s development:

"It is great to see the response on public markets to The Trade Desk [TTD] IPO. TTD has done a great job of showing growth, keeping the company lean, and remaining focused," said Jay Stevens, Adform's chief revenue officer, and former general manager, international at Rubicon Project. “Having been through the IPO process once before, this is merely the first step on the path and not the end goal. It remains important for the company to continue to beat and raise each quarter's goals.

"The TTD IPO demonstrates the appetite in the market for successful ad-tech companies. With this investment from public markets, TTD is now in a position to be inquisitive and it adds fuel to the market consolidation, which is already beginning to take shape [Denstu/Merkel, Vector/Sizmek].”

Sloan Gaon, CEO, PulsePoint, had this to say: “The Trade Desk has played a significant role in shaping the advertising landscape. It has drawn from what the financial exchanges have done over time with electronic trading, and applied it to the ad marketplace. While most companies in the industry just focus on marketplace issues as an ‘ad’ problem, The Trade Desk has addressed these issues and presented unified solutions.”

Gaon cites TTD’s ability to build one of the largest demand-side platforms, its nimble tech stack “that has been able to take advantage of the changes in the marketplace quickly,” and a sales team "that has been able to tackle both Open RTB and PMP [private marketplace] deals.”

Gaon maintains that TTD’s IPO may warm Wall Street back up to the ad-tech space. “Given the cold shoulder Wall Street has given the ad-tech industry, only the strongest companies will be able to elicit excitement from investors who have been burnt more often than not from ad-tech IPOs,” Gaon said.

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